Tulsa World
by: JANET PEARSON Associate Editor
Sunday, July 24, 2011
7/24/2011 3:11:41 AM
As you're stuck on the Broken Arrow Expressway for the umpteenth time, or delayed by yet another construction zone, or spending what seems like hours looking for a parking space, did you ever wonder if maybe there's a better way?
It's time to rethink how we get around in Tulsa - not only because future needs demand it, but also because the federal government does too.
Local transportation planners last week unveiled a draft version of this area's regional transit system plan, known as "Fast Forward." It's not the kind of reading material most Tulsans would take to the beach. But whether we know it or not, transportation planning is important to all our daily lives - as well as our pocketbooks.
The 25-year regional plan looks at the needs and demands of this area's top-priority travel corridors and sets the stage for identifying how each corridor's challenges might be best addressed in the decades ahead. Ideas include such modest and basic measures as tinkering with the existing bus system to more exotic options such as light rail. (For more, visit www.tulsaworld.com/forward)
Why bother to look so far into the future? History is a guide. Our highway system was planned in the 1950s, and it's still not completed. One reason: When it was originally planned, adequate rights of way for future work were not set aside. That means taxpayers now must buy property for today's work at considerably higher prices than the land would have cost decades ago.
So if we want to preserve such options as light rail 20 or 30 years from now, we'd better get the work started now... FULL ARTICLE
Posted on
Sun, July 24, 2011
by John Cox